Coyote Chronicle CSUSB

The Independent Student Voice of CSUSB Since 1965

The Korean Culture

by 38 Comments

By the desire of students to expand the Korean culture, a whole day was made dedicated to it.

The Korean Festival first took place in 2015, followed by a surprise for Bomi Hwang, CSUSB’s Korean professor, that the festival continued annually.

Bomi Hwang providing information about Korean traditions to attendees during the festival.

For Hwang and her students, it became a big project while they all got to know each other during the process.

“When we started, we had meetings every other week for four months, including dress rehearsals, driving to Los Angeles to get the Korean costumes. Korean culture is a way to bind us together. I’m so grateful that I’m able to work with the students here,” shared Hwang.

The festival usually consists of some kind of visual display, followed by a dinner reception and a showcase.

This keeps students and attendees actively exploring the culture throughout the day.

Students deciding which color they want from the variety of small bags that were filled with Korean candy.

For the visual display this year, it was decided to do a reenactment of a traditional Korean wedding ceremony.

When it comes to the uniqueness of Korean traditional weddings, the wardrobes capture most of the attention due to the distinctive elements.

Along with the wardrobe, the ritual and bows play a huge part in the ceremony.

“When it comes to bowing, there are specific frequencies. The groom and bride are going to bow at least three times and how they bow also has a meaning, it’s just a rare opportunity to watch the entire ritual,” said Hwang.

Attendees got to experience the rich taste of various Korean foods that take a while to make.

Food is another unique component of Korea that draws people in to check out the different types of tastes that the country offers.

“The Korean food is usually limited here because the temperature is very important. When someone is catering it seems to be more simplified. But foods like Kimchi and other traditional Korean dishes take a long time to make,” shared Hwang.

A few varieties of food from Korea are kimchi and skewers, which consists of a collection of vegetables along with meat.

Throughout the entire day, there are elements of traditional and modern-day Korea displayed while maintaining a balance.

For the showcase, there is an intermission in between that helps break the present and past of Korea.

Students practicing kpop song “Crown” by Tomorrow X Together before the debut of the showcase.

“The beginning has more modern things such as K-Pop (Korean pop music), that’s presented by CSUSB students, the second part is consist of traditional performers that are native Koreans,” said Hwang.

Hwang has heard many of the reasons why students want to first learn about Korea, but later on, develop a love and eagerness to explore the culture in depth.

“Learning Korean, language is part of the culture. Students have various reasons when they first want to learn the language such as because of the food, K-Pop or the art, but we want to create something that has all those components and more so there can be exposure to the culture,” shared Hwang.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  25. Howdy I am so grateful I found your blog page, I really found you by error, while I was
    browsing on Digg for something else, Anyhow I am here now and would just like to say thanks a lot for
    a incredible post and a all round exciting blog (I also love the theme/design), I don’t have time to browse it all
    at the minute but I have book-marked it and also added your RSS feeds,
    so when I have time I will be back to read more, Please do keep up the awesome work.

    Reply

  28. Hi, I do believe this is an excellent site. I stumbledupon it ;) I may revisit once again since i have
    book-marked it. Money and freedom is the greatest way to change, may you be rich and continue to help other people.

    Reply

  29. Thanks a lot for sharing this with all people you actually know what you’re talking approximately!
    Bookmarked. Please additionally seek advice from my site =).
    We will have a link exchange contract between us

    Reply

  31. I’m not that much of a internet reader to be honest but your sites really nice, keep it up!
    I’ll go ahead and bookmark your website to come back
    down the road. Cheers

    Reply

  33. It’s actually a cool and helpful piece of information. I’m happy that you
    simply shared this helpful information with us. Please stay us informed like
    this. Thank you for sharing.

    Reply

  35. Hi would you mind stating which blog platform you’re using?
    I’m going to start my own blog in the near future but I’m having a
    hard time selecting between BlogEngine/Wordpress/B2evolution and Drupal.
    The reason I ask is because your design seems different then most blogs and I’m looking for something unique.
    P.S My apologies for getting off-topic but I had to ask!

    Reply

  36. Hi just wanted to give you a quick heads up and
    let you know a few of the images aren’t loading correctly.
    I’m not sure why but I think its a linking issue. I’ve tried it in two different browsers and both show the same results.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.